Labor’s conference showed that the government’s strategic vision is caught in different timezones.
emerged the fact that AUKUS is now embedded in the party platform, and a stirring narrative from many observers about the reassurance this sends to allies in Washington and London.Wayne Swan , Anthony Albanese, Richard Marles and Penny Wong in BrisbaneIt compelled senior Labor ministers to articulate their own version of the “China threat”, with Defence Minister Richard Marles naming 2030 as his D-Day for Beijing’s growth in military power.
In a significant move, the party dissent forced Labor to include in a national security statement that Australia’s acquisition of submarines “does not involve anycommitment to participate in, or be directed in accordance with, the military operations of any other country”. But the conference also showed that the government’s strategic vision is caught in different timezones. Their stopwatch tumbles in an ominous countdown to Chinese military prowess, their timetable for the actual defence capability to meet the new circumstances coddles old father time. By the time Marles’ doomsday arrives in 2030, Australia will not have received even the first of the three mooted Virginia-class submarines from the US.
The ghosts of Andrew Fisher, John Curtin, HV Evatt – though not Paul Keating – were summoned to endorse the apotheosis of Labor’s AUKUS embrace, ministers craving the approval ofbelieving the party could be won over by sentiment and emotion. But what the party cannot bring itself to admit, still, is its quick adoption and ready genuflection at the altar of Morrison’s strictly wedge pursuing AUKUS policy.
To write off the dissenters as part of a whining Labor fringe is a mistake: none who were given a formal speaking role criticised either the US alliance or US Asia policy.What they did express was genuine concern about what all this meant for peace, the terror of nuclear weapons and the kind of Australia they wanted to live in.
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